


Silhouette

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Female Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't love him. She's pretty sure he doesn't love her, either. There are too many walls, too many risks, too many doubts between them for that.</p><p>But they could. F**k it all if they couldn't love each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silhouette

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: First ME fic in a while. A little Post-ME1 fluff and angst. Enjoy; feedback is appreciated :)

“I don’t want to leave.”

She opens her eyes slowly, a sigh escaping as she forces herself back from encroaching sleep and only half succeeds. “Was I supposed to hear that?” she asks, voice a murmur as she takes in the muted shadows of their room, the streaks of cool light mapping the bedspread, ceiling, and carpet, making shapes on the walls. For a while, he doesn’t answer, and she wonders if she should take it as a sign that he won’t.

“…no, ma’am.”

She smiles and closes her eyes again. Of course she wasn’t. “Should I pretend I didn’t?”

A deep breath, the conscious rise and fall of his chest under her cheek. “I…I don’t know.”

Well, that’s new. Good Staff Lieutenant Alenko usually jumps at the chance to have his social blunders overlooked. Granted, the last time he didn’t wound up with them here, their dinner cut short and their doggie bags left sitting on the coffee table as she backed him through the doorway and to the bed of his hotel room. Since then they’ve done little more than doze to the sounds of traffic outside the window and the white noise of their own breathing. It’s been calm, peace-filled in a way she doesn’t remember being since before she landed on Torfan’s soil a handful of years ago, and…

 _Not now_ , she thinks. _Later, promise, but not now, when things are…good._ She presses her cheek into the skin of Alenko’s chest, sighs to release the tension before it can build. He’ll notice like he tends to notice everything, take note of it and stick it to the proverbial wall in his mind that’s dedicated to making little colored strings of connections between her outward demeanor and the warm, sticky inside he and the others seem convinced she has. She almost smiles at her own wording but stops herself, because he’d somehow notice that, too, would somehow catch the second-long twinkle in her black-brown eyes and figure out that yes, she used to quite happily make innuendos of her own thoughts, before something happened that tore her wide, gap-toothed grin away and left the politely blank face she shows off now.

Sometimes, oftentimes, _all_ the time she thinks she should cut this nameless thing between them to the quick, let them both out of the loop before someone – before _she_ – gets too caught up in it and backslides, starts ‘caring too much’ like all her superiors used to say on her eval reports.

_"Hate to think what it’s gonna take for you to understand what a weakness it is to let yourself get attached to people, Shepard. Hate to think what’ll happen to that big heart of yours when you realize you can’t afford to.”_

She didn’t really get the message then. She gets it now. And if it wasn’t so damn _warm_ with him, with all of them, she would.

She drags her fingers down Alenko’s chest, smiles at the now-familiar little shiver that comes with her touch, then lifts herself on her elbows to properly see his face. The hand he has on her head tangles in the mass of her braided hair as she moves, her chin coming to rest on the palm of one upraised hand. “Talk to me,” she says simply, looking into the pretty brown of his eyes. He smiles up at her, small and self-conscious.

“Sorry. I’m being awkward again.”

“Worked in your favor last time,” she points out. He coughs out a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it did.”

“So, what’ve you got to lose?” Bad choice of words. There’s a lot to lose in what they’re indulging in here, something that should’ve stopped long before he ever came knocking on the Captain’s door. Their fault for not realizing how deep the connection had gone before it hit them like a concussive round on the eve of a battle they probably should’ve lost. She smiles. “Talk.”

It’s just…” he begins, then pauses to gather his thoughts. “It’s only been a week since the Battle of the Citadel, or whatever they’re calling it. There are reports to make, people are still being accounted for, and…” He sighs. “I don’t think I should be off the team right now.”

“You’re not off the team,” she replies. “You’re getting ahead.”

“I don’t want to be ahead, I want to be _here_.” With a burst of breath, Alenko takes his gaze to the ceiling, his forehead scrunched in that way that makes her want to rub it smooth. Instead she waits, recognizes the look on his face that says he’s slowly but surely coming into his words. “I…know it’s important,” he continues. “This evaluation, I mean, and that I be there. But I think it’s just as important that I be _here_ , with the team, on the _Normandy_.” He pauses for the briefest moment. “With you.”

“Coulda sworn you were gonna say ‘on me’,” she quips, then chuckles when Alenko coughs out another laugh despite himself.

“I’m serious, Shepard.”

“You think I’m not?” She gives him a small grin, her fingers absently trailing over the jut of his collarbone. “You wouldn’t’ve been wrong.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” he breathes. “But it wasn’t-”

“Your point. I know.” She sobers her grin to a surprisingly easy smile. “I hear what you’re saying. I still think you should go.”

“There’ll be plenty of time to start on my next N rank. It doesn’t have to be now.”

“Okay, not now.” She tilts her head and eyes him. “When?” she asks.

He sighs. “When everything’s not so up in the air.”

She smirks. “Things I’m involved in don’t ever really _leave_ the air, Lieutenant. If that’s what you’re waiting for, you might as well get comfortable.”

“I _am_ comfortable,” he murmurs. “I don’t want to leave here, or the _Normandy_ , or the team. I don’t want to leave what we have.”

And there it is. This isn’t about reports, aftermaths, or N ranks. It’s about them. Of _course_ it’s about them.

She doesn’t love him. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t love her, not yet, not with the steel mask she’s placed on her face, the fixed guise of Commander Shepard the galaxy needs to see.

But they could. Fuck it all if they couldn’t love each other. She doesn’t know who the ever-loving hell she _is_ right now, hasn’t for years, but she knows she could love him.

“Sounds like a problem, Lieutenant,” she says softly, and isn’t really sure if she’s saying it in reply to his words or her own thoughts. She guesses it doesn’t matter; when he looks at her, meets her gaze with solemn brown eyes that reflect far too much feeling, her smile turns sweet despite herself, and she can’t stop the crawl she makes up his chest to reach his lips. He still smells a little like their day together, still tastes a little like their dinner, still touches a little like he doesn’t know what to do or how far to go with her. Only a little, though, and when they part, he opens his eyes and lets her see it, caresses his hand along her jaw and cups her cheek with growing surety.

“I’m staying, aren’t I?” he whispers. She kisses him again in answer.

“Captain’s orders.”

* * *

 

The next morning, they stand at the dock. The _Normandy_ gleams in the sunlight, primed and set for the months they’ll spend rooting out geth posts in nearby systems. She stands in her uniform, crisp and ironed, her boots polished, her face fresh, her dreads wrapped into her signature bun. Looking for all intents and purposes like Commander Shepard, indomitable captain of the _Normandy_ and geth-killing expert.

Her crew make their way aboard, faces just as scrubbed as her own, uniforms just as crisp. They salute her as they pass and give their encouragements to Alenko, promise to keep the ship running tight in his absence. The Lieutenant smiles, accepts their well-wishes with ease, returns Liara and Tali’s hugs when they embrace him goodbye, but she sees the minute tightening in his forehead and around his eyes, the tension in his hands. When they’ve boarded and she’s the last one left, she steps forward and extends her hand, tightens her grip when he takes it in his. “I’ll be rooting for you, Lieutenant,” she says. Alenko warmly squeezes her fingers in turn, looks at her with a touch too much intimacy.

“I won’t let you down, Commander.”

She hesitates for a moment, eyes the clasp of their hands between them. _This is your chance_ , the Commander whispers. _This is where you should end it. Cut the tie, let it go._

“When we get back,” she begins, her gaze lifting to his, “you’ll tell me about it.” A soft smirk comes to her lips. “Maybe this time we’ll finish dinner.”

She sucks. Really, really sucks. But she swears his smile makes it worth it.

“I’ll hold you to that, Commander,” he says softly. “Be safe.”

When she boards the ship, she immediately makes her way to the bridge as Joker gets clearance to pull out. From her place behind his seat, she looks out the nearby window, does a quick survey of the dock before settling on a familiar figure. Alenko’s still there, leaning against the railing, his eyes on the _Normandy’s_ hull. As if called, his gaze shifts to the bridge windows and their eyes seem to meet, as if he knows exactly where she is. She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

“Ready to head out, Commander?” Joker asks, in that same tone of voice he used when he caught them in front of her locker during lockdown.

“Yeah.” She keeps her eyes on Alenko. “Let’s go.”

As the ship pulls out, she knows he remains, an unmoving silhouette against a backdrop of frenzied bodies and movement. Appropriate, she thinks, just before her choice begins to settle in.

They’ll be back, of course, after the designated months have passed and the Alliance has its confidence that her return won’t stir up too much trouble. He might even be waiting, poised in that exact same spot, his elbows on the dock railing and his pretty brown eyes on the bridge windows as they approach. He’ll be better then, probably. More confident, surer of his strength and his ability to do the good he so wants to do. And she wants to see it. That inevitable conversation _will_ come, has to; what’s between them is too messy, too risky, too _warm_ , and she won’t be the reason he doesn’t end up all she knows he can be. But regardless of what happens when it’s said and done, she wants to see what he’ll accomplish, good as he already is.

She likes to think she’ll get the chance. The universe and her own heart obliging, maybe she will.


End file.
